Truth be told
by Tarkin
Summary: After 'As you were' and the not-Wedding, Spike goes on a drinking binge with Halfrek, wishing wishes... Chapter 8 is up, and it's rather short and sad. I promise more action soon! Overall PG-13, but R for some language.
1. As It Was

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters. They all belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox… I just borrowed them – thanks!  
  
Rating: R for some language.  
  
Spoilers: Up to "As You Were", rumours for "Hell's Bells".  
  
Comment: I know, I know. This is certainly not how things on the show will play out. Probably Spike is really the Doctor, or at least he helped him, for whatever reason. But I felt so depressed after the last episode, I had to write myself something to make me feel better and get my hopes for a happy ending up again. And yes, I know there are no happy endings on BTVS, but hey… One can still dream, right?!  
  
Feedback: Yes, please. This is my first fanfic – see how desperate I was? So again: Please!  
  
Distribution: I'd be honored – just tell me where it goes.  
  
********************************************************************* *****************  
  
TRUTH BE TOLD  
  
Previously on "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer":  
  
Spike punches Tara on the nose, both go "Oww!" Tara: "He punched me!" Spike: "Yeah, and you are welcome!" Buffy and Spike are nearly kissing in the hallway of the Summers' house at Buffy's birthday party. Tara steps in. Spike to Tara: "A muscle cramp." Tara to Spike: "In your pants?" – "Maybe you should put ice on it". Buffy at the Doublemeat Palace cashier: "It's you." A cut to cut replay of last episode's demon hunt while Riley's voice explains from the off: "Sevolta Demon. Very dangerous. A breeder. The eggs are sold on the black market. There are not a lot of people I would ask to risk their life for me. I need you, Buffy." They stand face to face at the bottom of the dam when Sam steps up and asks: "What are you doing with my husband?" Riley: "I meant to tell you." Buffy killing the demon: "My wedding gift." Sam: "It's dead." – "Did Captain Can-All forget to tell you that it was a homing operation?" Riley, on Buffy's couch: "There is a dealer in town, calls himself the Doctor." Spike to Buffy: "A person can change", Buffy to Spike: "You're not a person." Riley to Spike: "Doctor." Spike to Riley: "You can stop calling me that", then, downstairs in his crypt, in front of the eggs: "I can explain…", cut to Buffy knocking him down. Riley to Buffy: "I have permission to take the Doctor out." Buffy, to Riley: "I'm sleeping with h… him", and to Tara: "Why do I keep letting him in?" Tara to Buffy: "Do you love him?" Buffy to Spike: "Do you love me?" Spike: "You know I love you." Buffy to Spike: "I could never love you. I am using you, and it's killing me."  
  
********************************************************************* *****************  
  
He saw her turn and leave, speechless, unable to utter a single word, let alone think of one. He didn't know how long he stared into the burnt silence of his crypt, still seeing her shadow where she had stood to tell him she was sorry. It seemed like an eternity, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. This was the real deal. This was the end. He had had his chance, and he had mucked it up. Her voice echoed throughout the cave: "I'm sorry, William."  
  
When he heard this sentence ring through his head again, the bleach-blond vampire broke down, sobbing, crying, screaming, and pressing his fists against his eyes to eliminate the pictures. But they kept coming back – pictures of Buffy kissing him, devouring him, clinging to him, beating him, shagging him, yes, even fucking him senseless, and, finally: making love to him. Or so he had thought. He had thought then – then! That sounded like a lifetime away, but it had only been yesterday –, that he had won her heart. He had really believed that. They had made love, and he had flown into oblivion on this wonderful feeling of her returning his love. Until Captain America had stepped in.  
  
The pictures in his mind changed. And he heard the sound of the helicopter again, making him shake even more violently. The picture waves to a  
  
Flashback:  
  
********************************************************************* *****************  
  
The helicopter was hovering over the cemetery. A black-clothed figure used the rope to get off, casually jumping the last feet to the ground. With big, forceful steps, the broad-shouldered man crossed the path to a ruined crypt. He entered without knocking. He looked around and realised with a satisfied smile playing around his mouth that the hand grenade had done considerable damage to the old stone tomb.  
  
"What are you still doing here? Shouldn't you run off, James Bond-like, to your next mission?"  
  
The broad-shouldered man turned, surprised: "Spike! You startled me." Riley looked at him curiously. "I wouldn't have expected you to still hang about – after all that happened." He couldn't suppress a smirk.  
  
"Well, you know how it is. I stick around. Sunnyhell sweet home." The vampire searched his duster pockets for cigarettes.  
  
"So… you didn't wait to get paid the second half of the money I promised you?" Riley asked tentatively.  
  
Spike snorted and lit a cigarette. "Figured you weasel your way out of paying me anyway, with the eggs destroyed and all."  
  
"Yeah, you didn't exactly keep up your end of the deal, did you? Perhaps I should stake you for that."  
  
The vampire just shrugged, not even honouring the threat with a response.  
  
"Or perhaps I should dust you for mere stupidity", Riley mused, more to himself. "Tell me, Spike, why did you 'hide' the eggs in your crypt, without freezing them as I told you? You knew that this would pre-empt the hatching process, and with the shenanigans Buffy and you are up to lately, it would only have been a matter of time before she would have stumbled over them all by her own."  
  
Spike gave him the 'how stupid can one soldier-boy be'-look and took another drag from his cigarette.  
  
Riley stared at him in disbelief. "You wanted her to find them!"  
  
"Yeah, what did you think, Captain America? That I'd let you get away with a breed full of demon eggs, ready to be used in your latest version of a sick experiment? Not bloody likely, is it?" The vampire's voice was as cold as his look.  
  
"It would have been for the benefit of science", Riley tried, not very convincingly.  
  
"Oh, pulleease!" Spike laughed a short, mirthless laugh. "Rather for the benefit of you, adorning yourself with some doubtful credit! Didn't the U.S. government, high and mighty as they usually act, forbid all demon sociology research?"  
  
"They are stupid!" A strange glint lightened Riley's eyes for a second. "They don't understand anything! Maggie Walsh was a genius. The things she discovered…" He took a deep breath. "I knew I had to continue her research, as soon as her lawyers had sent the papers to me. I can finalise what she began… I…"  
  
"Yeah, so you are acting exactly like Dr. Walshenstein knew you would: like a good boy", Spike interrupted, disgusted. "Haven't you learned anything from your tenure on the hellmouth, soldier-boy?"  
  
"I am not a soldier-boy anymore!"  
  
"Oh, right, I forgot. You're with a super-secret mission now, living a life someone else invented for you as a cover-up." Spike tossed his cigarette on the floor and stamped it out forcefully. "Just tell me one thing, oh Mr. Combat-Scientist, or whatever titles you're carrying around on your business card: Why did you have to tell Buffy these lies about your life? Especially that you're married? She would have let you go anyway. I thought you loved her. But twisting the knife like this…" The vampire shook his head, hate barely concealed in his features.  
  
Riley looked ashamed for the first time during their encounter. "I wouldn't have. But Sam met us surprisingly, and she didn't know it was Buffy, and acted according to legend. So the cat was out of the bag, so to speak. Even if there isn't really any cat at all…" His voice trailed off. Then he looked at the vampire inquiringly. "Now, do you really hope she will come running to you again for comfort?"  
  
"Well, no, but…"  
  
"Good, because she won't. She will never love you. She will never see anything else than a monster in you. Now more than ever!" Riley grinned evilly. "And with that knowledge you will die, 'mate'", he mocked Spike's accent while producing a stake.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
Buffy slowly walked away from the Magic Shop. Willow and Dawn had given her a real hug fest after Riley and Sam had been swept from the grounds, and she had cried, just a little bit. Not so much for Riley, though, but that was something neither her sister nor her best friend knew. And she wasn't ready yet to confess exactly how pathetic her life had become. Miraculously, both had understood that she needed some time alone, and perhaps a little slayage, as Anya had proposed in her usual chipper voice, to clear her mind.  
  
Buffy had started to pay attention in order to detect real feelings, however fleetingly they would appear on the face of one of the girls. But no hidden hurt looks had crossed the features of either of them. So she had hugged Willow a last time, and kissed Dawn good-bye with the usual 'in bed by eleven'-order, confident that Xander would drive both of them home safely, and had taken off.  
  
First she headed in the direction of the Doublemeat Palace. She knew she would have to speak with the manager, trying to sweet-talk her way back in again. A picture of the woman flashed before her eyes, as the manager was proudly pointing to her '5 years'-badge. Buffy shuddered. She remembered her colleague telling her that he was attending night school because he didn't want to be life-sentenced to the DMP, Riley complaining about the smell, hell, even a vampire complaining about the smell.  
  
'It must be horrible for vampires, with their enhanced olfactory system', Buffy thought. 'I wonder why Spike never says anything… Oh great, Buffy, good job. Here you go again, thinking positive and grateful thoughts about this double-scheming undead!'  
  
Before she could berate herself a little bit more, her vampire detection sense started to tingle. 'Spike?'  
  
Despite herself, her heart started to beat a little bit faster. However, she realised quickly that it was not he, but just your run-of-the-mill vampire. It must be around the corner, lurking in a dark alley. She advanced cat-like, still clothed in her black garb, courtesy of Riley's sec- ops unit. The monster didn't even know what hit it before it burst into dust.  
  
"I should request government funding", she muttered to herself. "Have the right equipment, and the job is half done!"  
  
Riley flashed up again before her inner eye, and next to him, Sam. They both did what they liked to do, got paid and had the reward that their job was helping to make the world a better place. Buffy knew that she, too, made the world a better place. But she didn't get paid for it. Who could she possibly ask for a salary, anyway? Certainly not the Council. Besides, it just didn't feel right to request payment for doing her sacred duty. Unlike Riley, or Sam, or any of the other Military guys, she wasn't a normal person who put her life on the line. She had super powers, and with that, responsibility just stepped in. "Action is my reward", she pronounced.  
  
Her face fell, and her shoulders slopped forward. What had gone wrong? Where had she taken a false turn and transformed her life into pathetic- central? Why wasn't she able to do what she did best and make a living out of it, and not only in the barest sense of surviving? Buffy's head shot up when she heard the blaring of a siren. Unconsciously, she had come to the Police Station. A big sign hung next to the entrance: "Join Sunnydale's Finest – WE RECRUIT NOW!", and a telephone number.  
  
Buffy stared at the sign, wide-eyed.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
Spike stared at Riley wide-eyed, not so much in horror but in surprise. Did this stupid git really think he could stake him without repercussions from the slayer? She would certainly get pissed if she weren't the one to turn her favourite pet vampire into a neat little pile of ashes. Also, somehow Spike was sure that Riley would certainly not let his ashes fly into the ocean on a sunny day, as Dawn had promised him to do, should she ever witness his death.  
  
"You can close your mouth now, Spike. Do you really think I could let you live? You know way too much about the project. So I guess this means another one bites the dust…" Riley closed in on Spike in fighting stance. Dust whirled from behind the vampire, swirling around the blonde's feet before settling down in a perfect circle. Spike looked down, nodding slightly, and was careful not to move.  
  
"Why don't you run, Spike, and make this a little bit of a challenge", Riley hissed before attacking him with a left jab. But instead of connecting with the vampire's jaw, his fist hit an invisible barrier in mid- air that suddenly turned a violently flaring orange-red.  
  
"Ow!" howled Riley. He frowned: "What…?"  
  
"Do you really believe I would converse with you quietly without having taken some safety measures? The chip in my head might prevent me from fighting you like I wish I could, but it doesn't prevent me from thinking!" Spike gave him his patent 'don't treat me as if I were stupid, cause I'm not'-look.  
  
Riley stared back. His glance went from Spike's face along his body to the floor. The dusty circle still glowed slightly orange. Riley tried to break the circle with the point of his shoe but was propelled back on his butt immediately as the orange wall flared up again. He nodded in comprehension. "Magic!"  
  
Spike just shrugged.  
  
The soldier shrugged back, scrambled to his feet and went for the door. But before leaving, he turned back to the vampire. His eyes glinted strangely: "Do you really think you have the better deal, Spike? Being so close to her, and still not having her…" And with this repetition of exactly the same words Spike had said to him once, Riley slammed the door of the crypt shut.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
Buffy snapped out of her freeze-frame when the door to the Police Station slammed shut. A tall, athletically built man in faded blue jeans and a dark blue dress shirt, his wavy brown hair held together in a short ponytail in his back, strode towards her. She stared at him open-mouthed.  
  
"Can I help you, Miss?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"You are standing here for at least five minutes now without so much as moving a muscle. So I thought I checked if something was wrong with you." He explained.  
  
"Are you a police officer?"  
  
"Detective. Detective Kenneth Brown", he smiled back at her and held out his hand.  
  
Buffy didn't take it. "Do they allow that?" She pointed at his ponytail.  
  
He smiled some more. "Once you have moved up enough in the ranks… You think about joining? We are recruiting. Training starts in April."  
  
Xander's voice echoed in Buffy's head: "Polyester and doughnuts…"  
  
She shook her head slightly. "I… No, I was just passing by. But… I don't know. I… Perhaps I am thinking about it…" Her voice trailed off. She looked up at Detective Brown. He had nice eyes, of an indefinable colour. Something between green, grey and brown. And the eyes smiled at her. Out of reflex, she smiled back.  
  
His smile deepened even more. 'He has dimples', thought Buffy and felt herself melt away.  
  
"Listen, Miss…"  
  
"Summers", she said, hastily, "Buffy Summers." And then she realised that it sounded exactly like the patented introduction of one secret agent ("Bond. James Bond."). She blushed, a deep red.  
  
Detective Brown didn't seem to notice. "Miss Summers", he continued, unfazed. "If you would like to ask some questions about police work, the training, whatever interests you, I would be glad to help. I know it is a big step to commit oneself to, something that requires a lot of consideration. So?"  
  
Buffy could only nod. Thankful, she took the card he handed her. "Give me a call."  
  
"I will." She turned away.  
  
"Where are you going? Can I give you a ride?"  
  
"No, thank you. I will be fine."  
  
"You know, this town isn't the best place to stroll through after nightfall… But hey, whom am I talking to? Probably a future member of Sunnydale's Finest! I know you will be fine." And with a nod, he went away, juggling his car keys into the air.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
Spike slumped back from his intimidating posture only when he heard the helicopter noises fade away. Without turning, he said: "Thanks. Without you, I'd require the service of a vacuum cleaner right now." He snorted. "But then again, no one really vacuums a crypt, do they?"  
  
Tara stepped out of the shadows. "You're welcome", she said with a sweet smile. Since Buffy's birthday party, she had grown even fonder of the blond- bleached vampire than before. Her teasing him had first been Tara's way to take the pressure out of the relationship between the two when the whole group had been trapped in Buffy's house. But Spike had been no fool. When they had finally been able to leave, he had caught up with her and had asked her straight to the face: "How come you know, witch?" And Tara had simply answered: "Buffy told me."  
  
Then they had started talking. And it had been Tara that Spike had consulted when a certain Agent Finn had come to him and asked if he could store something in his crypt. And they had both come to the same solution: Agree to Riley's financially very attractive proposal but not tell Buffy about it to avoid any possible heartache. And now that.  
  
They both looked at each other for a while in silence. Finally, Tara spoke: "Did you have a chance to explain to Buffy?"  
  
Spike just snorted. "As if she believed me, ever!"  
  
"But you have to tell her that you didn't have the eggs here to sell them on the black market!"  
  
"Would you stop it?!" The vampire growled.  
  
"S… s… s… sorry…"  
  
When he saw how Tara shrunk back into her usual timid self that she had been able to shed so successfully when talking with him, Spike's features softened: "No, I am sorry, pet."  
  
He took a step over to her and patted her on the shoulder awkwardly. "But see. It wouldn't do any good. Buffy didn't even give me the benefit of a doubt." Shaking his head slightly, still in a state of shocking disbelief, he continued: "Bloody Captain Cardboard can waltz in here, sporting a scar that is only a sorry imitation of my original, and nobody asks any questions. Nobody doubts Mr. American Hero. Nobody wonders how come that he knows all and everything. That he didn't call ahead. I mean, pullease! Is this the 21st century or what? With all the gadgets he is using you might assume that he owns a cell phone to make such a crucial call!"  
  
Tara nodded in silent agreement.  
  
"And did anyone even remember under what circumstances he had walked out on her? Giving her a fucking ultimatum" – Tara cringed at the language – "after he got himself sucked off by vampire whores. Yet still he brandishes his 'holier than thou'-attitude without anyone so much as complaining!!!" The vampire grew angrier at every word.  
  
"Spike, please." Tara said quietly. "Calm down." She touched his forearm lightly, and the tension seemed to evaporate from him. He let his head hang down.  
  
They stood like this for a while in silence before Tara dared to start again: "You must tell Buffy what you know. Not only for yourself…"  
  
But Spike cut her off: "Tara, no. I wouldn't stand a chance. She'd probably not even let me finish the sentence before I got introduced to the business end of her stake." He paused to light a smoke.  
  
"The only valid reason for Buffy to believe in my innocence was that she thought me incompetent." Spike took a deep drag. "In other words, she thinks I am too dumb to be evil."  
  
"Well, not anymore", Tara pointed out in a very low voice. "She thinks that you did what Riley claimed you did."  
  
"Exactly." Spike stepped out of the crypt and sat down on the stairs in front of it. Tara followed suit. Silently, they watched the stars. Both knew that Spike had no way out.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
Buffy felt as if she had grown an inch or two. Someone had treated her as an adult. She stood more erect, suddenly feeling confident. This was her life, and she would get her grip back on it. To hell with the Doublemeat Palace. She turned and started walking over to the Sunnydale Campus. Soon, she broke into a jog and only stopped when she arrived at Tara's dorm room door.  
  
But the wicca didn't open. Either she was fast asleep – Buffy checked her watch: Not 10:30 yet, hardly possible that Tara had already gone to bed – or she wasn't at home.  
  
Just as Buffy decided to go home and try again the next day, Tara walked in.  
  
"Oh, Buffy – hi."  
  
"Tara! Where have you been?"  
  
The blond witch blushed deeply. "I… I…"  
  
"Sorry, sorry", Buffy shook her head violently. "My bad. I didn't mean to stage the Spanish Inquisition. I just wanted to ask you a favour."  
  
Tara nodded: "Sure."  
  
"Could you… could you do a de-invite spell for Spike?"  
  
"What? Buffy, no, you can't… I mean, what about Dawn, and Willow? They wouldn't know, and they would break it immediately, and then I would have to do it again, and, and you have to do this on your own, without magic…"  
  
"Tara, please", Buffy pleaded. She sighed. "Can I at least come in and try to explain?" And then Tara heard the story from her perspective.  
  
"But this is so… I mean, he has helped so much, and… this just doesn't sound like him at all. He must have had a good reason…"  
  
"I know. He always has a good reason. He probably would argue he did it for me, to help me out financially. Still I cannot ignore what I did overlook for the past weeks: He is and remains evil. The ends do not rectify the means, Tara."  
  
The witch nodded. "I know, Buffy", she said. "But did you even hear his side of the story?"  
  
"I don't need to." Buffy sighed again, for the umpteenth time that night. "I really like him. He is witty, funny, and sexy…" Buffy blushed. "Perhaps I even love him. At least sometimes. And I most certainly want him. It is so easy to fall in his arms and let him take me away from all the grim realities that claim to be my life." She paused. "But it is the wrong thing to do. I am only using him, selfishly. And how can I reproach him with doing bad things when I do them myself? I know I hurt his feelings because I am not true to him. And that he is an evil, moral-less vampire doesn't make my behaviour any better."  
  
Tara just listened, not sure if she should say anything, or what, for that matter.  
  
"So I have to break it off. I have to face my life all by myself again. Get a grip again. But this will be hard. Therefore, I need your help with the spell. And don't worry. I will tell Dawn and Willow. Because I need their help, too." Finally, Buffy stopped, looking at Tara pleadingly.  
  
"Ok. I'll come by tomorrow morning. But I first have to stop at the Magic Box for the ingredients."  
  
"Thanks!" Buffy flung herself at the blond witch and hugged her.  
  
Mentally, she decided that she would seek out Spike first thing in the morning, after having seen Dawn off to school.  
  
And that was what she did.  
  
The flashback sequence stops, the picture waving back to Spike crouching in his crypt, devastated.  
  
**************************************************************************** ********** 


	2. See No Truth

An eternity had passed, and still he was just crouching there, trembling, his bleached hair ruffled and partly dark with smudges of soot. Tears were streaming down his face. For a moment, he sat motionless amidst the ashes of his destroyed crypt, the sorry remains of his feeble excuse for an unlife. Then he began to shake again. He shook hard. But this time, he shook with laughter. It was not the happy kind he had experienced a couple of times over the past few weeks. Neither was it the mirthless laughter he had used so often to scare his enemies to the bones. It was the laughter of a mad man.  
  
'I'm going nuts', Spike thought. 'Here I am, lying devastated on the grounds of a burned-down stone tomb, and instead of working myself into a rage, rip the place apart beyond repair, or at least go out to bloody kill something, I giggle.' He wiped some tears away, not sure if they came from laughing so hard or if they were the last remains of his uncontrolled sobs that had just subsided a moment before the laugh track had started.  
  
"She is… hrmphhihihi… drive… hahahahaha… driving me... hohohohoho… fucking nuts", he said out loud between fits of laughter, to check if the sound of his own voice would calm him down.  
  
"I have spent over a century with Drusilla, queen of all lunatics in this dimension and maybe others, and came out of it unharmed, with my marbles still in check, but this bitch of a slayer gets the job done within a couple of weeks", he stated to no one in particular before starting to laugh again. Resonating from the crypt walls, the sound of his laughter resembled the heart-splitting wails of a hopeless child.  
  
Then suddenly, for no particular reason, Spike stopped. The silence that followed was even more terrifying to his ears. But he didn't care. He was a vampire. A creature of the darkness. A master of the night. He wasn't terrified by anything. Quite to the contrary, he was the one who did the terrifying. Because he was evil. Bad. The Big Bad.  
  
"Big. Bad. Vampire", he repeated out loud.  
  
A bad vampire indeed. A vampire, hopelessly in love with the slayer. That was as bad as it gets. That wasn't how things were supposed to be. He was supposed to kill the slayer, not love her. What if any higher vampire beings were watching his every step? What if, the day his body would finally fulfil the bible words the priest had spoken at his funeral, "ashes to ashes", these – vampire gods? – were to judge him on how he had done as a vampire? They'd have to conclude that he hadn't lived up to the expectations. And he would surely be punished with eternal torment.  
  
"Vampire gods, my ass", he snorted to himself. But he couldn't stop thinking.  
  
What if it was God who had made him a vampire? If He were so great, He'd probably rule over every creature. What if He had created vampires to even the score?  
  
Spike had watched enough TV, besides his daily fix of soaps, to know that humankind didn't do so well: There was overpopulation and undernourishment. There were men leading wars for water and arable land. And even in so- called developed countries, people killed themselves and even their distant neighbours without so much as thinking about it, every day, in small doses. They polluted water, soil and air senselessly, swapping some inane luxury for severe ecological damage of the planet. Pointless acts, eventually leading either to global warming or to the next ice age, and all because Man was more fertile, reproducing himself more ferociously than was advisable for his own good.  
  
What if vampires, demons in general, were there to shift the balance? What if it was his task in the grand scheme of things to kill and decimate humankind, in order to save Man from himself? Then he would be a bad vampire indeed, working on the wrong side of the road, not fulfilling his eternal destiny.  
  
"Great, now I'm having philosophical thoughts. This fucking chip's finally fried my brain, that's what it's done." He stood up tentatively. "Grand scheme of things, pff! Way to go, mate!" he told himself, staggering to the bed on unsure legs. Relieved to have made the few steps without breaking down, he sank into the burnt linen. It still smelled like her, even through the damage the flames had done. Spike started sobbing again.  
  
"It's the fucking chip", he told himself. "It's not her, for hell's sake! It's this damned chip they shoved in my head. It bloody changed everything!!!"  
  
But somewhere in his head a small voice told him that this way of looking at things wasn't entirely correct. He'd had a thing for the Slayer even before the government had managed to put the implant into his brain. Hell, he had had a thing for every single slayer he had met. He had loved these girls, not only their agility, intelligence and fighting skills, but also their style, wit and character. They were so young, and still, they willingly gave up what one could call a normal life, just to make the world a better place. Better for humankind. Their kind.  
  
Spike had to acknowledge that part of him had admired this quiet, unrewarded sacrifice of true herodom. Part of him had wanted to be a hero, too. For Drusilla, he had become a hero by way of killing slayers. But Angelus still hadn't seemed to approve. Little had Spike known that even back then, his idol had already been pestered by a soul. The poofter.  
  
Now he himself was a poofter. A sorry wanker, thanks to the chip.  
  
Which wasn't entirely true either. Spike vividly remembered the day he had found out about the chip, or better, about Buffy. And he not only remembered because the day after they had shagged a house down. He also remembered what had happened the day before that. Spike had been able to hit her without soliciting a mind-blowing migraine, and he had deducted that his chip had finally stopped working. When Buffy had told him that he was an evil, disgusting thing, the vampire had decided to prove her right.  
  
So he had gone into town. He had looked at all the happy meals on legs, and he had picked his victim immediately. But it hadn't been the kind of victim he would have chosen when he still had had his balls. Not a broad- shouldered man with which the fight would have been worth fighting.  
  
"Don't you get tired of the fights you know you'll win?"  
  
Why had he chosen this frightened girl? Why had he told her that he was evil instead of just biting and draining her? What'd been up with the speeches? In his heart, he'd known what had been what: He had chosen the girl because he had pitied her. He, the Big Bad, had felt pity for a scared young woman, obviously stood up by her date. And he had needed all the talk to convince himself that he was still the Big Bad. Also, somewhere deep inside his undead, non-beating heart, Spike knew that even if he had been able to bite her, he wouldn't have killed the girl. He would have acknowledged the fact that his demon was free again, and then he would probably have let her go. No, worse: He would have walked her home, if she'd only let him.  
  
"I'm a white hat", he stated. And a useless white hat at that, he realised. He was a living oxymoron: a creature of the darkness, longing for the light. Totally lost, to his kind as well as to humanity. And now, he had lost his very own light of the night, the one thing that had brought him brightness, brilliancy, and ultimately peace. So he had to find peace by himself now. He couldn't wait forever. It was time now. To hell with forever.  
  
The bleach-blond vampire stood up from his scarred bed and headed for the stairs. He knew that there was only one thing left for him to do.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
'Only one thing left to do', mused Buffy when she walked back home. One thing, one conversation, and then she would be able to start over. She stopped short when she realised that Tara had arrived at her home before her. Now she wouldn't have the chance to talk to Willow alone, in order to prepare her for the things to come. Silently, she watched Tara ring the bell at Revello Drive 1630.  
  
"T… Tara?" Willow stammered when she saw the blond girl at the Summers' front door. Her eyes involuntarily dropped to the bag in Tara's hand. A bag from the Magic Box. The redhead couldn't get her eyes away. They seemed glued to the bulging paper.  
  
Tara hurried to put the bag out of Willow's sight. She knew that her ex- girlfriend had had a hard time ever since Buffy's birthday party. For one thing, being found out had been hard enough on her. But what must have been worse for Willow was that people had needed her magical help, and she couldn't give it to them. Not during the party, nor a couple of days later, when Riley and his wife had asked for a simple location spell.  
  
With shaking hands, Tara held the bag behind her back: "I… I am here because Buffy asked me to… to do a spell."  
  
Willow frowned. But before she could comment, Buffy stepped up the driveway.  
  
"Yes, I did. Thanks Tara, for coming by so early this morning, and sorry that I'm late. I… I had an errand to run…" she blushed a little bit, but the two other girls didn't seem to notice.  
  
"What spell?" Willow finally managed to ask in a hoarse voice.  
  
"An de-invite spell. For Spike."  
  
"Again?" Willow couldn't help herself. She had done the same a little bit over a year ago. So much had happened since then. Among other things, Spike had become part of the team. Perhaps not a full-fledged Scooby, but still, a helping hand that would surely be missed. Willow Rosenberg's face was a single question mark.  
  
"We told you he was the Doctor." Buffy sounded exasperated.  
  
"But… Buffy, he would never do anything to harm you, or Dawn, or even me, for that matter", protested Willow. "He loves you, and Dawn, and I think he really likes the rest of the Gang, too." Willow looked from Buffy to Tara and back. Both their faces shone deep concern and sad determination. She decided to switch to some fact-based arguments: "Imagine if he hadn't been here for your birthday party. Who would have been able to help you fight this… this wall-vanishing sword demon?"  
  
Buffy sighed. "There is something else." She took a deep breath: "Spike… He can hit me, Willow." Reassuringly, she added: "Only me. There is nothing wrong with his chip. I just came back a little…" She searched Tara's eyes for help, to find the right words.  
  
"Her molecular basis must have been shifted slightly during the resurrection spell, so that Spike's chip doesn't recognise her as human", Tara explained in a calm voice.  
  
"Oh…", was all Willow could say.  
  
"So, you see… With this latest scheme of his, trying to sell Demon eggs on the black market, I just cannot be sure what he is up to. He is evil and…" She stopped abruptly.  
  
Willow looked from her to Tara, begging for another word. She felt devastated. Because of her, because of her magic, Spike would be de-invited from the Summers' house again. Dawn would never forgive this.  
  
Over Willow's shoulder, Buffy cast a pleading glance to Tara and mouthed: "I am not ready."  
  
Tara shrugged. The wicca had looked relieved when Buffy had started her explanation, but when the Slayer had finished, her shoulders had slumped forward in resignation. She had hoped that Buffy would tell Willow what had happened between Spike and her. And that Willow, as her best friend, would find the right words to tell her that it was ok. But now the chance had passed.  
  
"I better get started", she said. "I have class…"  
  
The two girls nodded and looked at her expectantly. But Tara hesitated. She remembered all too well how Willow had looked at the bag with the spell ingredients.  
  
"Will… I think you better go." She tried to sound as nice as possible, but still firm.  
  
For an endless second, Willow stared at her. Then she nodded and said coldly: "Already out of here." With that, she grabbed a jacket and slammed the door shut.  
  
Tara shrugged again and without another word started the preparations for the spell.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
Willow walked down the road determinedly. She knew exactly where she was going. Within minutes, she entered Sunnydale's main cemetery. It felt strange to be here in daylight. The last time she had seen the sun streaming through the leaves of the trees had been the day they had buried Buffy in a silent ceremony.  
  
Now, Willow had a new, a better purpose to be here. She knew it was difficult, and even dangerous, to wake a vampire during daytime, but according to Buffy, the slayer was the only one exempt from the chip's function. So Willow was ready to dare the devil. Literally. But it had to be done. She needed some answers. Willow had practised magic long enough to develop a certain psychic awareness. And this new, sixth sense of hers told her unmistakably that there was more to the whole story then either Buffy or Tara had told.  
  
With these thoughts, she found herself in front of Spike's crypt, just in time to see a certain bleach-blond vampire step calmly out into the daylight, face lifted towards the sun, arms spread to his sides. Willow gasped. That was it! He must have found another Gem of Amara.  
  
'Or maybe not', she thought when smoke started to rise from the vampire, swirling around him, hiding him from her sight.  
  
With a quick step, she was next to him and shoved him back inside the crypt forcefully. Then she slammed the door shut. 'My second today', she thought to herself. 'I should aim for a record.' A cry brought her back to reality:  
  
"Bloody 'ell!"  
  
"Yes, exactly! What were you thinking? Have you completely lost your mind?" Willow shouted, glad to have a deserving victim.  
  
"Red?" Spike was thoroughly surprised. His skin had stopped smoking and started to heal already. "What are you doing here? Can't a man ever have some privacy in this hell of a town? Doesn't anyone have any respect for intimate moments anymore?"  
  
"Intimate, like what? Your death?"  
  
"I am already dead, Red, remember?"  
  
"I thought 'undead' was the term of choice", Willow couldn't help but putting on a teasing voice.  
  
"Well, yeah. First time around the job got obviously blotched. So I thought t'was about time to finish it."  
  
"Spike, I will not allow you to commit suicide. I didn't when you first got your chip, and I certainly will not now…"  
  
"And why not, pet? It's not that there is still a soul to rescue. Soulless demon here, remember. Evil menace to society."  
  
Spike looked anything but menacing. Rather miserable, decided Willow. But she was not ready to step back from her original goal yet. So instead of an answer, she had another question for Spike:  
  
"How could you do this to Buffy? Abusing her like this?"  
  
'So here it comes', thought Spike. 'She, or maybe Captain America, told them, and now the whole self-righteous Scooby Gang will show up at my doorstep to vent on me. Why didn't I decide to take up sunbathing earlier this morning, instead of wallowing in self-pity?' Aloud he said: "She wanted it, too."  
  
"She wanted to be hit?"  
  
"I did a little bit more than hit on her, Red. We were way past the hitting- on-each-other-phase. I understand that she wanted to spare you the details, but still…" Spike closed his mouth abruptly when he saw the expression on Willow's face change from anger to confusion to dawning understanding.  
  
"Oh…"  
  
If he had been able to blush, he would have been a deep-crimson red by now. The redheaded girl in front of him hadn't known anything about their nightly encounters. Buffy had obviously only told her that despite the chip, the vampire could hit her, literally, not in any second meaning. It was his turn:  
  
"Oh… bloody 'ell!"  
  
"You… Buffy… you…" Willow stammered.  
  
Spike nodded silently. Unbidden, the images came back to him. Especially the one from last night, before Captain Cardboard had waltzed in. She had asked him if he loved her. And his heart had felt so light. He started sobbing again, not caring that Willow still stared at him in disbelief.  
  
"You two had…" Willow paused, still not certain what to call it. "… an affair?"  
  
The blond-bleached vampire managed to shrug under tears.  
  
"And then Riley comes back, married, and all Buffy can do is break up with you and ask Tara to do the de-invite spell…"  
  
"Tara did a de-invite spell?" Spike couldn't believe it.  
  
Willow merely nodded and sank down beside him, taking him into her arms. The simple gesture of friendship and comfort made him only cry harder.  
  
"I shought sh'was on my shide…" he sobbed. "I shought… she just shaved me from being shtaked by Riley Righteous a few hours ago, and now she does a de-invite shpell?"  
  
"Tara saved you?" Willow didn't trust the words she was hearing. "And Riley tried to stake you? Why? Oh right, because you wanted to sell the eggs!" Suddenly, she remembered the events of last night, and let Spike go out of her arms. "But Tara knows you are the Doctor… Why would she save you from Riley?"  
  
"Stop thinking so hard, Red. You'll develop a nasty little wrinkle, right there 'bove your nose", he pointed to where Willow's frowns deepened, "and that'll scare all the hot little ladies away!" Somehow, the expression of complete and utter not-understanding on Willow's face made Spike smile. "Wanna here a story, pet? Can't guarantee a happy ending though…"  
  
As Willow nodded, he added: "And need somethin' to lubricate the old vocal cords. Have gotten a bit rusty from all the cry… uhm, shouting out in frustration last night!" He stood up and opened one of the chests that had miraculously survived the hand grenade attack. "Knew there was another bottle of Glenlivet in there…" Spike muttered, already feeling better. The chance to tell his side of the story, right from the beginning, would offer him the possibility to reflect on everything again. And perhaps he would be able to see clearer, to find a solution other then getting a very deep tan.  
  
"Okay then, pet. Once upon a time, there was a Slayer…" And he told her everything, from the moment Drusilla had seen that he had fallen in love with Buffy to his admitting his feelings, from Buffy's rejection to their first kiss, from their fights to their love-making, and how Tara, Riley and the eggs fit into the whole picture. He didn't spare Willow's feelings. He told her how wrong it had been to bring Buffy back, but he also admitted how happy he had been that day. Neither did he spare himself, admitting his faults and mistakes. The sun streaks wandered over the floor of the crypt and finally disappeared. Night had fallen when he finished his tale.  
  
They sat in silence for a long time. Then, finally, Willow cleared her throat:  
  
"And Tara believes you?"  
  
He nodded.  
  
"I could do a spell", proposed Willow. "You know, something like a truth- seeing spell…"  
  
"No!" Spike glared at her. "Are you nuts? You know yourself, probably better than I do, that the minute you use magic again, you will be gone!"  
  
"But… but I screwed up so badly with Buffy, with her resurrection spell and all, and… and I just want her to be happy!" She paused and looked at the vampire earnestly. "Even if it means being with you…"  
  
Spike looked at her in awe. She would really risk her well-being for Buffy. But then, so would he. He slowly shook his head. "I know I came to you for a love spell once, but didn't go through with it, remember? Because I realised it wouldn't work." When Willow glared at him, he corrected himself hastily: "Don't get me wrong, Red, I'm sure the spell would have worked just fine. But it would not have accomplished what I wanted then: Dru's true love, together with her respect and appreciation." He searched his duster pockets frantically for his cigarettes. Suddenly he felt that only smoke filling his dead lungs would prevent him from collapsing right then and there. But when he had managed to tap a cigarette out of the packet, his hands shook so badly that he wasn't able to light up. "Oh, bugger this!" He tossed the unlit cigarette on the floor and stamped on it.  
  
Willow looked at him pitifully, searching for words of comfort she didn't have. Perhaps it was better that way, let him finish, say out loud what he was feeling.  
  
And indeed, Spike continued: "See, you can't make a person love you. You just have to wait for it to happen. I thought I was getting closer. Buffy and I… we even started to have conversations. You know, after the…" He stopped when Willow held up her hand to signal that she didn't want to hear any further details of what had happened before the talking. Seeing the red- haired girl act so shyly, he grinned, trying hard for the evilness to come back to his features. But all that came out was an affectionate smile.  
  
"Well, but I was mistaken, wasn't I? I tried everything. I told her that I loved her and I told her I didn't. I told her that she was so special because she has you guys, and I told her that she didn't belong with you, but with me, in the shadows. I chained her so that she would listen, and I let her go. I got beaten up for her and I let her beat me. Hell, I beat her myself, and then I kissed her. So that's it. I'm at the end of my bleeding tether."  
  
When he remained silent, Willow asked: "Do you want me to talk to her?"  
  
Spike shook his head. "Tara told me she tried. But right now, Buffy hates herself because she has feelings for me. Hell could freeze over and she still wouldn't see anything other than her pre-fabricated picture of me. She thinks that I am incapable of change." He sighed. "I don't blame her. I thought so myself – before love came to town." He hummed the melody of the U2 song.  
  
Willow smiled, glad that he seemed to be coming back to the realm of the living, or at least the undead. She decided it was worth to try again: "You know, Tara might have tried, but she doesn't know Buffy as well as I do. I could surely find some more convincing arguments…"  
  
The blond-bleached vampire shook his head again, this time more forcefully. "Don't you see, Red? Buffy has to figure this one out all by herself. She has to accept that things are not always painted in black or white. She has to come to the conclusion that there are many shades of grey." His voice trailed off. He kept silent for some time, staring to the ground. When he looked up again, he caught Willow's eyes and held her gaze. His eyes were deep, blue and honest:  
  
"I know I am no saint. I don't regret what I've done in the past, and I don't intend to pretend I do, just for her sake. I've done what I've done because I was what I was then. But I am different now. And I know that I will never go back to what I was, chip or no chip. I can't."  
  
"Do you… do you want a soul?" Willow asked timidly. "I am sure I could give you a soul. Even without the happiness clause."  
  
"Do I look as if I wanted to get into a bloody brooding contest with Peaches in L.A.?" Spike's horror seemed genuine.  
  
"I only thought… I mean, just to be sure… if the chip malfunctions one day…"  
  
Spike snorted derisively. Then he said: "Willow, I don't need a fucking soul. Don't you understand? I may not have the same moral compass you humans have – even though some of you do much more awful things than I could ever concoct, but that is beside the point. So agreed, perhaps I might slip. I have, 'cause I didn't understand why Buffy wanted to turn herself in to the Police. But overall, I'm doin' ok. Out of my own free will. It is my decision to behave like a fu… uh, like that." He looked at her intently. "Or do you really believe I didn't do any harm just because of the chip? Pullease!"  
  
Willow remembered all too well how effectively Spike had harmed the Scooby Gang even with his chip, just by talking them up against each other. He could have plotted scheme after scheme, but instead he had changed his mind and helped. Perhaps at first his motivation had been his love for Buffy. But then, during the summer the slayer had been dead, Spike had continued to help. Not only to protect Dawn, as he had promised Buffy. No, he had gone a step further and had actively slain demons, alone as well as together with the gang. He really had changed.  
  
"Why doesn't she see? Why doesn't Buffy see?" she muttered.  
  
"That's what I ask meself several times a minute, pet." Spike finally managed to get a cigarette lit and took a deep drag.  
  
"We have to make her see…" And suddenly, Willow's face lit up. "I have an idea!"  
  
Spike cocked his head to one side, curious.  
  
"You have to make her jealous!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Yes. Show her that other girls might find you attractive. Bring a date to the wedding!"  
  
"I'm not sure this would work, pet. Besides, where do I find a girl who is willing to participate in such a scheme?"  
  
"I have just the right person in mind", declared Willow with a content smile.  
  
**************************************************************************** ********** 


	3. Deals To Make

Buffy was whirling through the house. The day after the wedding, the new boarding guest would come, and it was high time to get ready.  
  
After she had met the nice police officer, Buffy had felt good. She had looked into possibilities to make money without going back to the Doublemeat Palace so that she could start prepare for a new career with Sunnydale's Finest without smelling like a French fry. She had scanned the job offers at the Sunnydale UC board, but to no avail. All there was were TA positions and students looking for someone to help them with Statistics, or French, or something else Buffy knew she would need help with, too.  
  
She had wanted to turn away, ready to grease-wrestle again when she saw it. A purple leaflet, on the far right corner of the board: "Rooms needed. UC Sunnydale seeks rooms for rent to allocate guest professors from Europe, starting this spring term. Please call…" And that's what she had done. She had called the administrative office for international exchange programs. The lady in charge had told her that they were still looking for one room to rent in order to accommodate a British professor for New History from LSE. Only after talking to Willow, Buffy had found out that that meant London School of Economics, one of the most prestigious universities in the UK.  
  
To the lady, she had described the guest room next to the living room as a sunny bedroom / office, not mentioning that it had served only partly as a home office for her mom. Mostly, the room had been a huge walk-in closet where all the junk they didn't use any more but couldn't find the heart to discard completely, was stored. The lady probably wouldn't have cared anyway. When Buffy mentioned the small bathroom next to it, the deal was half done. But today, the office wanted to send someone along to have a last look at everything, to be sure that the rent was appropriate for the offer. So it was important to make a good impression, not only with the room. Stinking magical herb smell throughout the house might undermine her plan to establish a reputation as a good host for guest professors from Europe.  
  
So when Tara had left that morning, the slayer had spent the better part of the day slaying junk and dirt. Now the whole house sparkled, and the guest room was cleared out and cleaned, smelling like fresh linen, thanks to the fresh sheets on the bed in the corner. The window was streak-free, and the sun had been pouring in before it had set. Buffy had moved the small desk over there and away from the door that led to the adjacent bathroom so that the professor wouldn't have to leave his room to freshen up in the morning. She had even managed to oil the hinges of the door. Everything looked perfect.  
  
"Buffy! Where are you?" Dawn shouted through the house.  
  
"In here", she yelled back.  
  
Dawn bounced in and looked around. "Wow! Can I have that room?"  
  
"No."  
  
"But, I have to get up early to be at school in time – I so need my own bathroom", the teenager whined.  
  
"Dawn, do I really have to explain?" Buffy sounded slightly exasperated.  
  
"No, no. I know, foreign male professor cannot be asked to share a bathroom with the female population of the house. Needs his privacy. And I promise, I won't pry on him unless he wants me to."  
  
"Dawn!" The slayer's voice rose, menacingly.  
  
"Just joking. He'll probably be as old as jack, and wrinkly and stuff. Will the room inspector bring a picture?"  
  
"I doubt it." Buffy frowned suddenly. It might have been a good idea to know how this guy looked like, for safety precautions. This was the hellmouth, after all. She shook the thought away. Stop it with the paranoia already, she told herself.  
  
"…name?" asked Dawn.  
  
"Huh? Sorry Dawnie, I was…"  
  
"…thinking thoughts." With her typical teenage impatience, Dawn shrugged and left the room. "Just wanted to know what his name was."  
  
"Caine", answered Buffy, "William Caine." And, in a very low voice, she added again: "William."  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
"William, come on!" Willow dragged a very unwilling Spike through town, using his human name to make him move faster. When the vampire realised where they were heading, he grew all the more weary.  
  
"Where the fuck are you takin' me, Red?"  
  
Willow remained unfazed by his nagging. Resolutely, she opened the door to the infamous fast food joint: "The Doublemeat Palace!", she said, inviting him in with a mocking half bow.  
  
"Duh! Why? What in hell are we doin' here? What if Buffy…"  
  
"Buffy doesn't work tonight. I don't even know if she'll work here ever again, after the last stunt she pulled when she left in mid-shift to help Riley. So you're save."  
  
"She got herself fired from this friggin' joint, again?" Spike asked incredulously.  
  
Willow just shrugged and dragged him to the counter. A brown-haired girl repeated, to the trillionth time today, "Welcome to the Doublemeat Palace, how can I help you?" She didn't sound as if she was too enthusiastic about their being here, let alone the fact that she would have to help them with their order.  
  
"Hi Sophie", said Willow.  
  
Sophie looked up, and her face lightened when she recognised the guests as friends of Buffy's she had met at the birthday party that took longer than everybody had wished. "Willow, hi!" She blushed a deep crimson red and started to stutter. "A… a… and S… S… Sp… Spike…" she coughed.  
  
"Red, what is it with you and stuttering girls? Does this turn you on?" The vampire sneered, only to be elbowed in his side. "Ow! Can't I even make the odd nasty comment?"  
  
"No, you can't. And it's not me Sophie is interested in, right?" She turned to the girl who had blushed even more, if that was possible.  
  
"What the…" Spike started to understand. "You gotta be kiddin'!"  
  
Willow glared at him to shut up. Smiling to Sophie, she dragged Spike a couple of steps away from the counter. "She thinks you are cute, or hot, or whatever these girls say today when they think about a guy a certain way. She'd most definitely agree to go to the Wedding with you!"  
  
"Hm." Spike looked slightly more pleased. "How come you know?"  
  
"She told me at Buffy's birthday party. She asked if you two, as in Buffy and you, were an item, and I said, no! Silly me, but she is your chance to make Buffy jealous!"  
  
"No way!" Spike suddenly remembered what the ultimate goal of his tagging along with the ex-witch had been.  
  
"Why not?" Willow shot back, to angry to keep her voice down.  
  
"Because!"  
  
Willow just gave him her 'tell me already'-look.  
  
"Because, for starters, it's not right. Not if she", and Spike pointed over to the brown-haired girl at the counter who obviously strained to understand what the two were talking about, "expects more."  
  
Willow snorted slightly, obviously not believing that he would give jack about someone else's feeling.  
  
"Don't you fucking snort at my caring about other people beside your pathetic little group of slayer groupies!" Spike got angrier by the second. "You don't really believe that I've changed, either. Oh, bloody hell, Willow, you know what? Forget this…" And with this, the blond-bleached vampire turned around, duster billowing behind him, ready to leave.  
  
Willow grabbed his arm. "Wait! I'm sorry, but… never mind. What other reasons might there be?"  
  
Spike turned back, motioning his arm Sophie. "Look at 'er, Red." He sounded exasperated. "No offence, Sophie, but you're just a girl."  
  
"Exactly! If you two turned up at the wedding together, it would show Buffy that other normal girls could fall for you, too. And she'd be jealous as hell, believe me!"  
  
Spike looked at her intently. Willow had really lost contact to her best friend, he decided. He sighed and started to explain: "Buffy would never believe this. She'd immediately see through the scheme. She'd never, not for a second, believe that I would fall for someone like Sophie. No, Sophie poses no threat to the slayer."  
  
Willow looked back and forth between the vampire and the waitress and decided that Spike was right. She had thought that sending him on a date with a girl who could be a new friend of Buffy's might hurt her feelings even more, but Buffy wasn't stupid. So the red-haired mouthed "I'm sorry" to the brunette girl and followed Spike to the door, when a voice from one of the corner tables stopped her in her tracks.  
  
"Willow, hi!" The girl who had called her had short, pitch-black hair that was spiked up by at least one tube of gel, rings on each finger, a huge peace sign dangling from her neck, ten earrings in each ear, and piercings in her nose and eyebrow. Her face was pale, her huge green eyes surrounded by black charcoal. She wore a smudgy white T-shirt that was torn conveniently to reveal her navel that was also pierced. Black leather pants hugged her hips.  
  
"Oh, hi Lori! Enjoying dinner?" Willow asked  
  
"Mhm", munched the girl. "And you?" She swallowed a sip of her soft drink, and with a nod to the door, stated: "Out with a real cutie, I see. Did you change camps again?"  
  
Spike had also stopped and watched the two girls. He eyed Lori appreciatively.  
  
"Huh?" asked Willow and followed Lori's look. She blushed. "Oh, no. He's just a… he helped me… he's…" She took a deep breath. "He is a friend."  
  
"Don't you want to introduce me, then?" Spike had obviously overheard her stammering and came over, looking as pleased as punch. 'Damn vampire- hearing', thought Willow. 'Have to keep that in mind!'  
  
"Ugh, Spike, this is Lorenna, Lori, this is Spike."  
  
They both nodded and eyed each other curiously. Then, it was Spike's turn to whisper into the redhead's ear: "Now here we have a girl worth upping the odds!" He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.  
  
Willow laughed. "Forget it."  
  
"Why not?" Spike asked, now clearly audible for everyone in the restaurant. "She is perfect. Exactly my style. If I showed up with her, Buffy'd feel really threatened, if she has any sense in her!"  
  
Willow just continued giggling, especially when she realised the look of horrified realisation on the other girl's face. "Spike, stop it. Lori might help me to make Tara jealous, if you get my drift, but she'd never…"  
  
"You want to make a girl jealous?" Lori interrupted.  
  
Spike had the good graces to look embarrassed. "Yeah…"  
  
"How much you'd pay?"  
  
"How much do you want for some hot kissing in front of a bunch of people? But I warn you: It has to look like the real deal, meaning I will shove my tongue down your throat and you will have to reciprocate the tonsil tennis." Spike put it as blunt as he was able to.  
  
"Just making out? For how long? And when?"  
  
"Next Saturday. The whole day, max. Perhaps only a couple a'ours. Prolly they kick me out the second they see me there, anyways."  
  
"Five hundred bucks, no matter how long it takes."  
  
Spike offered his hand: "You got yourself a deal, Luv." **************************************************************************** **********  
  
The cage had three concrete walls, one with a heavy steel door. The forth wall was a mirror. The creature stared in it, at itself, dazed and confused. It hadn't seen a mirror before. Something wasn't right about that. It stared and stared in its own eyes, trying to look through this wall, through its own image, on the other side. There must be another side. There always was. It got closer and closer, its image getting bigger and bigger and clearer in the process. Standing nose to nose with its reflection, it suddenly aimed and charged a violent blow against the mirror.  
  
On the other side, Sam jumped back, unconsciously holding her nose.  
  
Riley laughed.  
  
"Don't you laugh! You think it can see through the mirror?"  
  
"No, it can't. The demon is scared as hell, believe me. Never saw itself in a mirror before, doesn't know what that is, doesn't grasp the concept." The soldier with the short-cropped hair contemplated the Savolta demon who had retreated into the opposite corner of the cage. Then he stepped over to the next glass window. It gave view into a likewise highly secured glass cage. But no demon was held there. Instead, the cage was outfitted as a sophisticated lab: computers and other instruments monitored the developments in several smaller glass boxes. Above the boxes, infrared lamps burned with warm light. Riley watched the interior contently. Suddenly, he took a deep breath in: "Agent, step over here!"  
  
When Sam joined him in front of the second window, she understood his excitement: In each of the glass boxes lay one demon egg. And the first had just started to hatch. 


	4. In The Open

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters. They all belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox… I just borrowed them – thanks!  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Spoilers: Takes off after "Hell's Bells".  
  
Comment: There is only one thing that could redeem Spike in Buffy's eyes – or not? And would he want it?  
  
Feedback: Yes, please. I continued this story because of the feedback. It's my fuel!  
  
Distribution: You want it? Take it! Just let me know.  
  
********************************************************************* *****************  
  
Previously on 'Buffy, the Vampire Slayer':  
  
Halfrek to Spike: "William?" – he looks back inquiringly. Halfrek to everybody at Buffy's birthday party: "All you have is time… and each other." Joyce Summers to Buffy: "You know the divorce had nothing to do with you. Your father loves you." Buffy's nightmare when her father tells her: "It was you." One of Buffy's birthdays, flowers from her Father, and a letter, Joyce's voice from the off: "Something came up. It's all explained in the letter." Angel to Buffy: "After the Ascension – if we survive – I am going to L.A." Willow to Oz in his van: "When are you going to leave?" Oz: "Pretty much now." A helicopter hovering over the ground, Riley is sitting in there, Buffy shouts up to him, but what we hear is Riley's voice from the off: "If we can't work this out, I am leaving… tonight." Buffy to Spike in the hallway of her house after the Social Worker left: "Why can't you just leave?" Xander to Anya: "I can't." He turns and leaves.  
  
Cut to Buffy, Dawn and Willow sitting in the Summers' living room, obviously feeling bad.  
  
********************************************************************* *****************  
  
"Why do men always leave?" Dawn asked after a while of silence.  
  
"Oh, Dawnie, no", cooed Willow. "You mustn't think that!"  
  
Both Summers' sisters eyed her suspiciously. "What? I mean, not all men leave. Ok., your father left your Mom, but – and forgive me that I will say that even before I say it – but he seems to be a real jerk, not even showing up for the funeral, and Angel left Buffy, but only for your own good, and you told me that he may have a point, and… and ok., Oz left me, but, but that was kind of good, too, because subsequently I figured out that I was gay…"  
  
"Subsequently?" Dawn asked, eyebrows raised.  
  
The redhead babbled on, very willow-like: "… and that was why he left that second time, so again, good reason, he is not really to blame, and… and… even though Riley left Buffy, but he was just an immature wimp by then, and now, now he's married", Willow cringed as Buffy interjected:  
  
"But not to me!"  
  
"Ok., bad example, but still, a man ready to commit!"  
  
The Summers' sisters obviously weren't convinced.  
  
"Ok., perhaps I babble, and my examples might be somewhat off-target, but I still have a valid point: Not everybody you'll get involved with will leave you! There are still some people who will stick around…"  
  
"For example?" Dawn asked, still unconvinced.  
  
"For example Tara."  
  
"Who moved out…", Dawn pointed out.  
  
"… and is very manly, in her flowing skirts!" Buffy added.  
  
Willow defended herself: "Ok., she left me, but only for a while. She is still sticking around. And we even talk again."  
  
Buffy smiled a sad little smile at her. "Will, I think it's great that you two start to work things out. But perhaps this is really because she is a woman. Look at us: Much more prone to talk things over, we double-Xs. I really think the missing leg of the Y-chromosome makes for some deficiency in the relationship skills of the earthbound male."  
  
"There are men who stick around." Willow knew she sounded lame.  
  
"Yeah, in general, people call them stalkers."  
  
"Spike doesn't stalk you anymore", Dawn protested immediately. "He even brought a date to the wedding!"  
  
"Just to make me jealous!" Buffy snorted. She knew that she had made a mistake when Dawn wanted to know:  
  
"Why would he want to make you jealous?"  
  
"Oh, uhm, I just mean… well, he tried everything else. So I guess he figures this is his last resort."  
  
Willow smiled to herself. Aloud, she repeated: "See, there are men who stick around!"  
  
"Spike is not a man!" But Buffy's protest was drowned by Dawn who started gushing over Spike, momentarily thrown back to the time when she'd had a crush on the vampire:  
  
"Oh, guess you're right… He was with this Drusilla-chick for over a century, wasn't he? Even though she's a lunatic and all, and she must have driven him nuts, and he still stayed with her, and tried to help her get better, and… ow!"  
  
Buffy had pinched her into the arm. "Don't take Spike as a leading example for a good man, 'cause he's not!" Her voice had risen angrily.  
  
"Whatever!" Dawn stood up and headed for the stairs. "But he protected me all summer, and he is my friend!" Half crying, she stomped up the stairs and slammed the door to her room.  
  
"Great", Buffy sighed.  
  
"She's just a teenager, Buff. Leave her some dreams. Don't let her become cynical too soon."  
  
"I don't want her to have the wrong ideals, fall for the wrong men, get her heart broken… I want to protect her from the things I had to go through, Will."  
  
"You can't", stated Willow simply.  
  
Both stared sadly into the air in front of them.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
Buffy and Willow were sitting around the table at the Magic Shop, trying to figure out what to do next. They had come up with nothing so far. Anya had vanished from Sunnydale completely, as if the Earth had swallowed her whole. Which wasn't a good idea to begin with, and even worse when you were living on the Hell Mouth.  
  
"That is so not like her, keeping the shop closed this long", Willow shook her head in disbelief, trying hard not to drink in too much of the witchcrafty books and artefacts. 'Stare on the table', she told herself, 'stare on the table!'  
  
"Where could she have possibly gone?" Buffy frowned deeply. "It's not that she has any other friends, besides us…"  
  
Both girls stared at each other, eyes growing wide. "Halfrek!"  
  
"What's with her? What has she to do with…" Xander's voice trailed off from the open door into the cool Californian night.  
  
"Xander…" Willow tried, anxious to make him feel better.  
  
"We… ugh… we didn't hear you come in", Buffy knew that her reply was even lamer.  
  
"You think that Halfrek has something to do with Anya's dissappearance?"  
  
"No…", both girls said in unison, but that didn't make their reply any more convincing.  
  
"Guys! We have to do something. If Halfrek took her away, to a demon dimension… We have to find her. I have to tell her that I love her. I have to get her back!!!" Xander was short of crying.  
  
"But how, Xander? You know I cannot do a location spell…"  
  
"Ask Tara! Would you, please?" He stared at his best friend, begging silently. Willow nodded slowly.  
  
"But… can Tara do that?" Buffy asked. "Locate someone in another dimension?"  
  
"It's dark magic, and she might need your help to keep her grounded here, but for starters, we know where to look – D'Hoffryns dimension. I still have his amulet which could guide us, sorta magical map thingy. I really think she could pull it off…" Willow's eyes started to glow longingly. Such things were exactly the kind of spells she had always wanted to try.  
  
"Will…", Buffy's voice was firm, trying to bring her friend back to this plane. The redhead snapped out of it immediately.  
  
"Sorry", she mouthed. Buffy nodded a reassuring "It's alright." She understood. Better than Willow would ever know.  
  
Xander cleared his throat. "Okay, that's one thing, but what if she is not there? Or Tara doesn't get through, or whatever. We need a backup plan!"  
  
The girls looked at him, eyebrows raised. Xander paced through the shop, thinking. His gaze travelled along the shelves, but there was no answer. Then his eyes fell on a magical urn that Spike had used as an ashtray once, to Anya's complete and utter indignation. The picture welled up before his eyes, and he swallowed hard. Then his features cleared. Happily, he turned around:  
  
"Buffy, why don't you ask Spike to hit the demon bars and ask around?"  
  
"No!"  
  
The other two looked up at her, surprised at her violent rejection.  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"I… I don't want to bring him into this. He will just make snide remarks at your expense all the time, Xander."  
  
"I don't care. He has all the right of the world to do this. I deserve it. Hell, I deserve a lot more punishment than bleaching remarks from Mr. Peroxide!"  
  
Willow giggled a little, relieved. At least, Xander seemed to get his humour back.  
  
"Xander, I'm sorry, but I can't ask Spike for help." Buffy looked stricken. "It's… it's personal."  
  
"Why, Buff? You ask him for help all the time!"  
  
The slayer sighed. She stood up and started to imitate Xander's pacing. What was more important, protecting her reputation, or making them understand why she couldn't go to Spike for help anymore? She had planned to tell Willow anyway. Only, not yet. Not as long as her best friend was still so shaken by her own addiction. But Buffy knew that she needed help, too. Meeting Spike at the Wedding that wasn't, with this girl he had shlepped around, had shown her that it was going to be a lot harder, a lot more hurtful than she had ever thought. If she wanted to go through with it, she needed her friends' help. And after all, she thought, showing them that she, too, had a problem, might even comfort them. 'It'll show them that they are not alone in their misery', she rationalised.  
  
Willow and Xander had watched her silently. Now they stared at her when she came back to the table and sat down. She took a deep breath. Her hands went through her hair to loosen it, to loosen the best way to formulate an explanation. The sentences must be stuck somewhere in her brain. The slayer sighed. 'Just say it already', she chided herself silently.  
  
"I can't ask Spike because", she paused, thinking: 'Oh god, why is this so hard?'  
  
Another deep breath, then Buffy blurted out: "I can't becauseIbrokeupwithhim."  
  
"What?" Xander's face was one single question mark.  
  
"She can't ask him for help because she broke up with Spike", repeated Willow, helpful as always.  
  
"I heard that, Will. Hence the 'What?'" Xander looked back and forth between the two girls.  
  
"But isn't that understandable? If you just broke up with someone, you wouldn't want to go back there and ask them a favour, would you?" Willow said to Xander. Then she nodded into Buffy's direction with what she hoped looked like an understanding smile.  
  
"Broke up? As in having had… something to break up to begin with? Buffy? With … Spike?" Xander stared at the slayer who was by now bright-red in her face.  
  
"Xander, chill. It's Spike!" The ex-witch started to get angry.  
  
"Exactly! Whatever happened to the 'Eww! Spike!' we so happily agreed upon before?"  
  
"Hence the breaking up…" Buffy offered. But she didn't manage to get Xander's mind off what had happened before the break-up.  
  
"Buffy… You – and Spike?" He just stared at her. Then he turned to Willow: "And why are you so cool about this? Did you know that?"  
  
Willow shook her head. "No… not… not really, but…", she stammered, not wanting to give away the fact that Spike had told her, and that the two of them had come up with the idea to make Buffy jealous to get them back together.  
  
Xander interrupted her, sighing with relief. "Oh! I got it. Haha. You're not Buffy. You're the Bot, and Willow didn't tell me that she reactivated it, and this is just a joke to make me…" He stopped as Buffy and Willow shook their heads.  
  
"Xander, I'm sorry. When we do have less pressing problems, I promise that I will try to explain. Right now, all you need to know is that I can't ask Spike for help, okay."  
  
Xander sighed. He fell into a chair heavily. "Honestly, Buff, I don't even know if I want to know why you had a… whatever, with Spike. I'm… I don't know. I really try to concentrate not to shout at you, and say nasty things about you and undead guys."  
  
Buffy glared at him. Xander didn't bother. He just took a deep breath and continued: "But that's not the issue right now. I just don't understand why you can't ask him for help."  
  
"Yeah, pet, why not? Come on, ask me for help. For old times sake I might even let you add the standard 'or I'll stake you good and proper'-tune. Come to think of it, you could also just pay me, like in old times."  
  
He smirked at her with that grin that made her knees go weak, and she still didn't know if because of anger or some completely different feelings. Buffy was glad she was sitting. She settled for another oldie but goldie: "Spike, what are you doing here?"  
  
"I needed some burble weed, and it's the first time in days the shop was open!"  
  
"What happened to coming through the sewers and nicking it from the basement?" Buffy asked, trying to mask her embarrassment.  
  
Spike gave her a dirty look. "I don't do that!" All three of them looked back at him with the Scoobies' trade-marked 'who are you kidding'-look. He shrugged: "There's nothing left there."  
  
"Ah", said Willow for the rest of the gang.  
  
The bleach-blond vampire remained unfazed. He reached into a duster pocket for his cigarettes. Deciding not to notice the glares, he lit one and flopped down on the stairs: "So, what's the what? Which big nasty are we a- chasin'?"  
  
"There's no we."  
  
"Bloody hell, woman, would you give me a break?"  
  
"I think she just did!" Xander started to enjoy this. There might be an upside to this, he decided: He knew one more thing to poke Spike with verbally.  
  
If looks could kill, the brown-haired boy with the cold feet would have been drained dry by now.  
  
"Spike, I'm sorry, but I won't ask you for help anymore. It wouldn't be fair", Buffy said quietly.  
  
"And since when do you give a damn about fucking fair, huh?" Spike growled. "You knew bloody well that I was in love with you last year, and still you came runnin'. Not that I mind, ey. But what's so special about now?"  
  
"I told you: I can't continue using you."  
  
Spike stared back at her, but she avoided his eyes. The room was bathed in an uncomfortable silence for a while. When the vampire finally spoke, his voice was ice-cold. "Suits me. Spares me from hangin' around the whelp!" With that he rose, stumped out his cigarette, and with a swing of his duster was gone.  
  
The Scoobies stared after him, still silent. Finally, Willow dared to speak up, timidly: "He is right, Buffy. You used him before even though you knew he had feelings for you. Why do you ca… Oh!"  
  
Buffy looked back at her, tears swimming in her eyes.  
  
"What?" Xander looked back and forth between the girls. "What 'oh!'? I don't have an 'oh' to oh!"  
  
The girls remained silent.  
  
"Tell me already, what is so special about now?" He stopped with a thought. "Oh, wait, I got it. It is 'cause this time it would be for me, and not for the holy slayage, right? Damn, Buffy, I helped you a zillion times, so you could jump over your own pride to help me for a change!"  
  
"Xander, shut up!" Willow snapped at him.  
  
"But…", he lifted his hand in reproach towards Buffy. The slayer jumped up from her seat.  
  
"Xander, that is not it, and you know that. This was completely uncalled for!" With this, she ran to the bathroom.  
  
Xander blinked and looked back at Willow, his face blank.  
  
She explained: "This time is different because this time Buffy cares."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Xander, do I have to spell it out for you, or will you just open your eyes?" Willow sighed, exasperatedly. "Buffy cares for Spike. She doesn't want to hurt him because she is in love with him." 


	5. Demons' Night Out

Spike walked along the dark night streets of Sunnydale, muttering to himself. "Now I'm not even good enough to help… no we…" He didn't know if he wanted to break something or if he'd rather go back to his burnt-out crypt to cry a little more. If she didn't even ask him for help anymore, then that meant he wouldn't see her at all. In this mood, if he showed up on patrol uninvited, she was more than capable of staking him right then and there. Desperation surged through his body.  
  
Loud music snapped him out of his depressing thoughts. Subconsciously, he had arrived in front of one of Sunnydale's notorious demon hunts'. The vampire straightened. No need for them to see him wallowing in self-pity. Also, he thought, while he was here, he could still do some research. He had been at the Magic Box long enough to have overheard what the whats were. Anya was still MIA, and they didn't know where to look. Well, this was a place, for starters, he thought when he entered the crowded room.  
  
Taking his bad mood out on the regulars, he elbowed his way to the bar.  
  
"Ow!", a female voice said with indignation.  
  
"What's your problem, Baby? This isn't the bloody Queen's…" Spike gaped at the women in front of him.  
  
"William The Bloody! Who else could be so bad-mannered!"  
  
"Cecily The Vengeance Demon!" Spike had gathered himself, including his mouth, enough to mock a half-bow.  
  
"Justice. Justice demon, if you don't mind." Halfrek's dark curls bounced when she nodded to emphasise her correct title.  
  
The blond-bleached vampire shrugged: "Whatever."  
  
"And the name's Halfrek. I only assumed the human name to be able to bring justice on some people in London."  
  
Spike didn't know how he deserved this much luck. They were looking for Anya, and he ran into the very person who just might have the answer. 'Play it cool, mate', he told himself. The vampire lit a cigarette. "So. For old times sake, are you up to a round of bar-hopping through Sunnydale's demon- world?"  
  
Halfrek nodded, and they struggled their way through the crowd to a first pit-stop at this bar.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
"She is what?" Xander had the feeling to fall from one shock to the next. "Buffy???" He turned to the small blond girl that now stepped back to the table.  
  
Her face was red, from lots of cold water and a good scrub with a towel. She had obviously tried real hard to get herself together. She patted Xander on the shoulder reassuringly and sat down again. After another silence between the three, the slayer spoke: "I don't know about love, Will. But I have feelings for him. I care for him very much. And I used him so badly, I treated him… horribly. There is no excuse." She sighed. "Really, no excuse at all. I started it, from the beginning. Since I was back, Spike was content just being my friend. Listening to what I said. But mostly listening to me not talking. Unlike you guys he didn't want reassurance, he didn't ask how I was, he… he just understood." She paused again. How could she explain what had happened to her friends when she didn't even understand herself why she had kissed Spike in the first place?  
  
"You don't have to…" Willow tried to help her out.  
  
"Thanks Will. I know. And I think I'm not even able to… to explain. It was just – it started with the Dancing Demon. Spike sang to me, then he saved my life, and then I just felt I had to kiss him. I wanted to feel something, anything, and he… came in handy. So we kissed."  
  
"I am still not sure if I want to hear this, Buff. The image of you kissing Spike… it's just…" Xander shuddered.  
  
Buffy didn't seem to hear. "And then, the day Giles left, after the forgetting spell, I went to the Bronze, to get drunk. Spike showed up, and I tried to ignore him – I really tried, Xander! – but I couldn't. So I sent him away, than ran after him, and another make-out session followed."  
  
"Can I have a forgetting spell right now, please?"  
  
The girls ignored him. Buffy was on a role now. "And then, the day after the Kings of Nerddom broke into the Museum, we found out that Spike can hit me, because I came back… different…"  
  
"What?" Xander asked his favourite question of the night. "You came back… wrong? Are you a demon?"  
  
"Xander!" Willow glared at him and decided that the guy was in deep need of some 'people skills'-training.  
  
"No, I'm not a demon. It's just that my molecules have been shifted around a little through the resurrection, and whatever it is in Spike's chip that recognises humans, doesn't identify me as such." When Xander's face remained worried, Buffy added: "Nothing serious, just a molecular sunburn, so to say." She took a deep breath in. "Well, anyways, I got really angry at him for suggesting what you just did – that I came back wrong. We fought, and traded insults, and as the kicks and punches didn't shut him up, I…" Buffy shrugged.  
  
"Let me guess: You kissed him again."  
  
"Not only that…" Buffy let her head hang, ashamed.  
  
"Oh no! And I got the visual already! This will chase me in my most horrible nightmares!"  
  
Willow, for once, didn't snap at him. Dreamily, she murmured: "I bet he is great in bed…"  
  
"Will!" Now it was Xander and Buffy who played Greek Choir.  
  
The red-haired girl turned crimson red. "Did I just say that aloud?" Then she shrugged. "Hey, lesbian here. Just observing the facts. He has over a century of experience. I mean, that must account for something!"  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
Spike and Halfrek, both in human-faced disguise, were sitting in the third bar of their tour, the demoness sipping some kind of cocktail with her little finger elegantly pointing away from the glass. The vampire was nursing a Scotch and had the bottle conveniently placed next to him on the table. His eyes seemed a little bit unfocused while he was listening to Halfrek babbling away about her successes in avenging children against their parents "…and/or", as she pointed out proudly, "their legal guardians."  
  
"So, when I met you in London, you already were a veng… uhm, a justice demon in disguise?"  
  
Halfrek nodded, a little bit self-conscious now. "This is why I told you that you were beneath me. To break your heart real quick, because I knew there wasn't a chance in any dimension that we could have a relationship." She cringed a little bit under Spike's disbelieving stare. "Yeah, ok., and because you were, you know. As a human. Beneath me, being a demon. Well, I was very young then, and the new powers took to my head, I guess." She shrugged apologetically. "No reason to go out and get yourself bit to be turned into a vampire, William. That's pathetic!"  
  
"I was pathetic, remember? All the poems I was writing… hysterically funny, if it weren't so sad. Couldn't even hold a gun straight, lest kill a fluffy little rabbit when out on a hunt." Spike snorted in remembrance of his former self. But the disgust he wished to display soon turned into melancholy. "Ah, the sun shining through the fall foliage…" He emptied his glass and refilled it quickly. His eyes watered, to his own surprise.  
  
Halfrek patted him on his forearm to comfort him. "Now, now, William. Tell me how you feel. Do you miss the sunshine?"  
  
"Funny you should ask." Spike paused and furrowed his brows. He obviously did some serious thinking. "I didn't for a long time. First, there were fights to fight, Drusilla to impress, Angelus to piss off. Then, there was the slayer. The chosen one. In each generation, that one girl of light who fights the forces of darkness. She became my sunshine." He emptied his glass again, refilling it with shaking hands. "When I am in her arms, when her blond hair tickles my face, I have my very own rays of sunshine flushing my cheeks." Another big swig, and the glass was empty.  
  
Halfrek regarded him with sympathy but didn't interrupt. She was here to listen, and after centuries as a justice demon for kids, she had practice. Patience, she knew, would bring it all out eventually.  
  
And after emptying yet another glass of whiskey, Spike continued, his speech starting to get slurry: "Shou know, I can shmell the shunshine on her…" His voice trailed off. Then, as if to clear his mind, he shook his head violently. "Well, not anymore, eh, luv?" His laughter was mirthless.  
  
"Do you wish to smell her yet again, William?" Halfrek asked nicely.  
  
"Do I… what?" Spike stared at her. "Oh no. I can smell her all the time. Vampire, remember? It pretty much kills me, but then again, not smelling her anymore… when she was dead, it was as if the air lacked an integral part, you know?" His eyes filled with tears again, and he emptied the bottle into his glass, taking another good swig. "And you know what the worst part was? Knowing that I wouldn't die. Not of old age, not of a disease, not of anything remotely human. I would keep on living and living and living…"  
  
"So, what do you want then, William?" Halfrek's voice was soothing, but insistent. "Do you want to be free again?"  
  
"Free of Buffy?" He asked.  
  
"Free of her, free of the chip that turned you into the laughing stock of each vampire satire… whatever you wish!" Halfrek sounded alluring now.  
  
"What are you suggesting?"  
  
"I could take care of your chip-problem for you. Make it so that it never happened. Do you want that?"  
  
"Do I want…?" 


	6. Careful What You Wish For

"I could take care of your chip-problem for you", explained Halfrek. "Make it so that it never happened. Do you want that?"  
  
"Do I want…?" Spike stared at her.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
"What do you wanna do tonight?" Buffy asked.  
  
"I don't know… I'm kinda beat. We had loads of homework this week, and tests and stuff. Just a quiet evening at home. Perhaps a video. Or someone could come over?" Dawn suggested.  
  
"As long as it doesn't turn into a slumber party, fine with me. Who do you wanna ask over, Janice?" Buffy was glad she could allow Dawn something.  
  
"Uhm… I'd someone else in mind, actually…" her little sister looked at her, pleadingly.  
  
"What?" Buffy grinned back. "Is it a boy? You wanna ask a boy over to watch a video with you?"  
  
"Nooo… or yes. But not the way you think." Dawn took a deep breath. "Remember when you said I could talk about anything with you, even though it might hurt you, but that you couldn't read my mind and I had to tell you my needs?"  
  
Buffy nodded, growing slightly weary.  
  
"Can we ask Spike to spend the evening?" Dawn asked in a small voice. "You know, I kinda miss him. He was with me all summer, we played cards together, and talked, and… he is my friend, Buffy, if you believe it or not."  
  
Buffy sighed. 'I faced Xander tonight', she thought, 'so Dawn should be a piece of cake, right?'  
  
"Dawnie, I'm sorry, but that is not a good idea."  
  
"But he never spends the evening with me, ever, again. Since you are back, he all but vanished from our house! Why do you always chase him away? He didn't do anything wrong!!!" Dawn had gone from polite asking into a typical teenage frenzy in a heartbeat.  
  
"No, Dawn, that's right, he didn't do anything wrong. I did. That's why it is not such a good idea for us to be around each other. Give it a couple of weeks, okay?"  
  
"What do you mean? What did you do wrong?"  
  
Buffy took her sister by the shoulders and walked her to the couch in the living room. "Sit down, Dawn. I have to tell you something."  
  
"You didn't stake him by accident, did you? You did!"  
  
"No", Buffy shook her head vigorously. "I didn't stake him. I… Spike… Spike and I… we…". This stuttering wouldn't get her anywhere. She inhaled deeply: "We had an affair. Spike and I. But it was wrong, so I broke up with him last week."  
  
"What? You and Spike… did you sleep together?"  
  
Buffy blushed. This was way too personal. Why hadn't she read all the books on educating a teenager that her mother had bought when she had been Dawn's age? She decided that honesty was the trump of the day, and nodded.  
  
"You? The one who told me, not a year ago, that Spike is a monster, the one that freaked completely when she learned that he was in love with her, the one that…"  
  
"Dawn!" Buffy hold up her hand. "That's enough. I get the picture. I didn't say this was a good thing. I said I did something wrong. So I ended it."  
  
"Why? And don't give me the 'evil fiend'-speech again, because I don't believe you. I know Spike myself now, and he is not evil – at least not anymore!"  
  
"Still, he is a vampire, and I am not. So this was not a healthy, normal relationship…" Buffy sounded exasperated.  
  
Dawn snorted. "What else is new? Our lives are not normal, Buffy. And Spike might be the best thing that ever happened to you. Better than every human testosterone-sporting guy at least, because check: He is superhuman himself, so no jealousy there. And he can help you fight, and…"  
  
"Dawn. It's over, okay? So don't get all excited. Instead, get over it. I did the best thing possible in the given situation for everybody, including you." The slayer's eyes brimmed with tears when she heard Dawn expressing the same thing Spike had told her: that he was the only one left for her. But her little sister didn't see the tears. Angrily, she shouted:  
  
"What do you mean by that? That you broke up with Spike to not give me a bad example? Oh, spare me that crap! Because, you know what? It already happened! Remember Angel? So don't use me as an excuse for your inability to have a functioning relationship!"  
  
"I don't. This isn't about you. This…"  
  
"Let me guess: This is about you, as always. You're afraid that something like with Angel will happen again. You're afraid you'll get hurt. So you just go around and break the heart of the best friend I ever had on this planet." Dawn stood up, tears flowing down her face: "I hate you!"  
  
She was about to sprint up the stairs when Buffy grabbed her arm: "Dawn, wait and listen to me, really listen. That's not it. I broke up with Spike because I messed up."  
  
"Messed up how?"  
  
"I used him. He was ready to just be my friend, but instead of accepting him into my life, I hurt him bad every minute of every hour we spent together. Because I placed my need for a strong – a physical sensation, above the possibility of real feelings, even though they might not have been as strong and breathtaking. I messed up the opportunity to have a friendship with Spike, because I couldn't admit that it might be feasible." Buffy looked her sister in the eyes. "I realised that I lost a friend, Dawn, because I messed up. And I can't stand seeing him knowing that."  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
"Do I want…?" Spike stared at her. After some time of thinking, he shook his head. "No. I can't believe I am saying this, but no. What I experienced the last two years was so much richer than anything I had lived through since I was turned, I wouldn't wanna miss one second."  
  
Halfrek slowly lost her temper. She had thought this to be an easy one. But no, this stubborn dumb-head was as poetic as he had always been. She watched him downing the rest of the whiskey bottle. He seemed to lose focus again. Now, she decided.  
  
"So, then what do you want?" she asked, honey-sweet.  
  
"What do I want…" The vampire laughed again without a trace of joy. "Shometimes… shometimes I wish I wash human again. Human, for her…"  
  
Halfrek looked up, deep into his blue eyes. Her human features were replaced by her demon self: "Wish granted." 


	7. Uncover The Sun

"Wish granted", said the Justice Demoness.  
  
Spike stared at her, his eyes widening with fear: "What? No!" And his body began to shake convulsively. "OOOWWW!"  
  
"I was shooting for a 'thank you very much', but a mere 'thanks' would have been just as fine!" Halfrek tossed her locks back. "That's what we justice demons get for all the trouble we are going through these days. Unthankful crowd…"  
  
"Justice demon?" Spike managed to grind out between convulsions. "Vengeance demon seems to be more appropriate after aaaa…." He howled again in pain. And then, suddenly, he fell face first on the floor beneath the table.  
  
"William…", Halfrek had turned him onto his back and patted his face lightly.  
  
The bartender had come over. "Too mucha drink, eh? Did polish that bottle rightaff, dinn't he? What a shame – fella should know whena stop, especially when with a lady!"  
  
"Why, thank you!" Halfrek rearranged her curls, pleased by the compliment. "Could I have some water, please?"  
  
The bartender nodded and went off. Within a minute he was back with a bucket of ice water and a staple of paper towels.  
  
As soon as she put one ice-water-soaked paper towel on Spike's front, he came to. "Ah!" He stared at Halfrek for a moment before recognition dawned.  
  
"Bloody hell, Cec… ah, Halfrek, what did you do that for?" He immediately gasped for breath as if just having run a marathon. He had forgotten that breathing now didn't just help him to smoke. It had become a life-insuring necessity again.  
  
"You wished. I grant wishes. You do the maths."  
  
Spike sat up tentatively and touched his breast. Something in there hurt incredibly. It was his heart, trying to get back to rhythmical beating after over a century of silence. It seemed awfully loud to Spike. "I wished?", he asked, dumbfounded. "What the fuck did I wish for?"  
  
"You expressed the wish to be human", Halfrek informed him, beaming at him.  
  
"No I didn't!"  
  
"Yes you did. Beats me why, but that was your wish."  
  
Spike sat up on the floor. He remained silent for a couple of minutes, trying hard to remember the conversation he had had with the demoness just a moment ago. Then realisation dawned: "Oh, damn you, Halfrek, I said sometimes. Some. Times. Which part of the word 'sometimes' didn't you understand?"  
  
"Sorry, we Justice Demons are not that sophisticated. You cannot switch humanity on and off like a lamp on a night stand." Halfrek held her hand out and helped him back up to his feet. "Besides, it seemed like a wish from the depth of your heart."  
  
Spike snorted. 'Great, I can still snort evilly. Was it an evil snort?' But he didn't ask if Halfrek thought his snorting was evil. What he asked, was: "Since when do you care what I wish anyways? Remember, I am a demon. Demons don't get wishes granted."  
  
"Who says that? Seems I didn't get the memo…" At Spike's insisting look, the justice demon stopped giggling at her bad joke and shrugged. "I know, we are not supposed to use our powers in favour of other demons."  
  
"Favour my ass", Spike grunted.  
  
"But essentially, we are free in our decisions to grant wishes. And I kinda owed you one." Halfrek shrugged her dark locks behind her shoulder. "Maybe I felt a little bit guilty, being the reason for you to have become a vampire…"  
  
"Don't flatter yourself, luv. I might have got bitten anyways, with or without you telling me zit."  
  
"Oh, come on, William, cheer up already. To be honest with you, this kind of wish is a little bit out of my league. So it seems that the Powers That Be helped me grant this enormous favour. That means you deserved it! Isn't that great?" The justice demon was obviously very chipper about her accomplishment.  
  
"Deserved it? What did I do to deserve such a horrible punishment?" The former vampire asked, eyes flashing angrily.  
  
"Punishment?" Now it was Halfrek who looked aghast.  
  
"Oh come on, you and I are the only living … living …, oh bugger, the only ones still around to have witnessed my complete and utter failure at being human." He took a deep breath. "In fact, we delved the better part of this bloody evening in the memories of my being a pathetic loser as a human."  
  
"You were young. You never had a chance." Halfrek opened her arms: "And here I come, presenting you with something only few ever get – a second chance!"  
  
Spike seemed not to listen to her anymore. Instead, his face fell at the pictures displayed in his mind. "Oh my god. What have I done? I am a monster!"  
  
"William, listen to me! You are not a monster. Your body had been taken over by one…"  
  
"And he made a good job engraving all the drastic pictures of his actions – zillions of sweet little horror movies in my brain!" Spike shuddered and started to shake again violently. He was crying. "This… this is… they want to…" he sobbed. "They are punishing me for all the torture I did…"  
  
"Oh, for crying out loud, William, will you stop that?" Halfrek started to loose her patience. "Here, take a last sip of the whiskey." As the man in front of her started to calm down, she patted his forearm again. "There, there. So, are you ready to listen now?" As the blond-bleached ex-vampire nodded, she continued: "You have been given a second chance. You are not a monster. So don't get all broody-moody, but make something out of your life. And open your wallet already!"  
  
"What? My wallet?"  
  
"Yeah!" Halfrek sighed at his incomprehension. "I want to know your last name, how old you are, where you live, the whole piñada!"  
  
Realisation dawned on Spike's face. He reached into his back pocket and produced a wallet: "Hey, there was more money in there before!"  
  
"Honest money?"  
  
"Noo…" And he started to sort out the cards. "Hey, credit card. Cool, never had one. Driver's license. William Caine? What kind of name is that? Hm. Cute picture. This is what I look like?" He handed the small plastic card to Halfrek, who nodded approvingly.  
  
"Anything else?"  
  
"Airplane boarding pass – oh, just flew in this night!, receipt of a locker at the bus station, library card… great, I am still a book-loving poof!"  
  
Halfrek snatched the wallet away. "A poof who is working out, obviously!" She tossed the membership card of the more prestigious of the two fitness clubs Sunnydale harboured over the table. Spike's face lightened slightly, while the justice demon scanned the wallet for further clues. "Hm. Nothing else… Oh, yes, here! Business cards from … UCSD?  
  
"University College of Sunnydale", Spike answered without missing a beat. Both heads shot up.  
  
"I am at the university?"  
  
"A teacher. Guest professor from London School of Economics, for New History, it says here." Halfrek seemed to be very pleased with her findings.  
  
"But I am pretty sure that there is a break right now", Spike mused. "Red… Willow told me."  
  
"Probably you just start after the break then. So no one will wonder where you came from, or why you started your courses a couple of weeks late. The Powers That Be have arranged everything just perfectly!" She smiled, completely content with the outcome of the evening. Her face fell when she looked at the former vampire again.  
  
Spike obviously didn't share her contentment. Instead, his eyes were wide with horror again.  
  
"In the name of D'Hoffryn, are you never satisfied? What is it now?"  
  
"My… my… my ad…" Spike stuttered, unable to complete the sentence.  
  
"Your address?" ventured Halfrek.  
  
The blond-bleached man in front of her could only nod. All of a sudden, the last remaining vampire confidence seemed to have been drained from his body, much like he had drained his victims' blood when he had still been the demon. Now on the contrary, he didn't look like a demon. He looked very young and vulnerable.  
  
The address read "Revello Drive 1637". Buffy's address. The Summers' home.  
  
"Oh, oh", was all that Halfrek managed to say.  
  
"I can't go there. No chance in hell. Somebody stake me already!"  
  
"You are not a vampire anymore!"  
  
"Oh bloody hell!" And Spike remembered very vividly the conversation when Buffy had told him she would take in a boarding guest, a professor from England, earning a little money on the side with the rent. "Teaches history", she had pretty much spat out the word, her nose wrinkling slightly. "Well, perhaps I can learn from him…" And she had already looked bored.  
  
"Cec… Hallie, I can't go there. First of all, she wouldn't believe me. And second, even if she did, she could never love me. And it would break my heart. If it weren't broken already…"  
  
The justice demon reached over the table and touched Spike's breast. "Seems pretty whole and working, if you ask me." She smiled. "The Powers That Be arranged all this for a reason. No need to fight it. Besides, you don't even know if you like her, now that you are human."  
  
He looked unconvinced, but Halfrek knew no mercy. Instead, she rose. "Get up, William. Time to tackle your new life."  
  
He stood beside her, still a little bit insecure and wobbly in his legs. In silence, they approached the front door. Just when Halfrek opened it, Spike shrunk back into the shadowy entrance area of the bar like a beaten dog. The justice demon looked at him as if he had gone nuts.  
  
"Sunrise!" He pointed out.  
  
"And you are, for the umpteenth time, no longer a vampire. So get your ass out of this sorry excuse for a hole in the wall and let's get going already!"  
  
The couple ventured through town by cab. Spike's DeSoto had disappeared together with his vampire self. They picked up his bags at the bus station.  
  
"How can one travel with so many books?", asked Halfrek while Spike could only grunt under the load of the heavy bags. 'So much for vampire strength', he thought. 'High time to hit that gym and do some free weight training!'  
  
Then he dropped Halfrek at her hotel. She gave him a peck on the cheek and the thumbs up. "You will be fine, William", and the taxi sped off into the morning traffic again. He was grateful for every red light that stopped them.  
  
When he got off at Revello Drive, a suitcase in each hand and the bag with books over his shoulder, his heart was beating so fast he feared he would die of a heart attack right then and there. But then he felt the morning sun shining on his back, showing him the Summers' house in daylight for the first time ever, and he suddenly felt surprisingly calm. 'Home', he thought.  
  
A noise at the front door made him look up.  
  
"Buffy!" It was unmistakenly Dawn who was shouting for her sister. "I think our rent… ah, guest has just arri…" She had opened the door in the process and turned to face the person who was standing there. Her mouth dropped open and she was lost for words.  
  
Buffy came down the stairs, a smile plastered on her lips. "Sorry for the shouting, Mister Cai… Spike?"  
  
And then both sisters could only stare at the former vampire who stood calmly at their front door, in full sunlight, packed with suitcases and bags, and not bursting into flames.  
  
"Spike! What… how… why…" Buffy suddenly stopped her babbling. "The Gem of Amara. I thought Angel had destroyed it. But you must have found a way… You double-scheming, blood-sucking, hell-raising, …"  
  
The ex-vampire smirked and shook his head. "Now, now, Miss Summers. We will have none of the name-calling in front of the Nibblet."  
  
The nibblet, also called Dawn, had recovered. "What's with the suitcases, Spike? Want to mo…?"  
  
"Dawn!" Buffy shouted. She had Tara do the de-invite spell just a couple of days ago and didn't want to go through the stinky herbal ritual again.  
  
"Yes, Dawn, I want to move in." He started searching for something in his book bag. He had seen a letter there from UC Sunnydale that informed him about the kind offer of former student Buffy Summers to lease him a room at a very reasonable price, breakfast included.  
  
"Oh no. You think you can barge in here, only because I have incinerated your crypt. But that was entirely your fault. You shouldn't have harboured these eggs in the first place. So deal with the consequences!" Buffy shoved Dawn aside and was about to slam the door in his face when he placed a foot inside the house.  
  
Buffy took a deep breath. "How did you do that? Why is the de-invite spell not working?"  
  
"What spell is not working?" asked Willow who emerged from the kitchen, only to mirror the earlier reaction of the Summers' sisters, gaping at Spike as if he were the 8th wonder of the world.  
  
"The Gem of Amara. Or something similar", Buffy informed her. "And it obviously overrules the de-invite spell. We have to do research, and fast." With this, she turned back to Spike, let her fist connect with his nose and knocked him out. 


	8. The First Day

Buffy turned and knocked Spike out.  
  
"Buffy! What did you do that for?" Dawn squealed.  
  
Buffy looked puzzled. "I didn't hit that hard. I have hit him much harder in the past, and never managed to knock him out with just one punch. I actually don't even know if I ever knocked him out…"  
  
She knelt beside the blond-bleached man and took a handkerchief out of her pocket, carefully dipping away the blood that trickled from his nose. His cheeks were rosy and warm. From the sunlight probably. An image flashed in Buffy's head – Spike telling her: "Can't wait to see if I freckle." – Would he? Light air came out of his nose, and his chest rose and fell regularly. He looked so peaceful. Buffy felt the longing for him again rising within her. 'Bad Buffy. You must be strong. Stop thinking…' She realised that she had started to adjust her breathing to the rhythm of his…  
  
"…breathing?" asked Willow.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
Dawn sighed the classic teenager stress sigh over grown-ups who never pay attention: "Willow said that it looked as if he were breathing."  
  
Buffy looked down at Spike, felt his pulse, suddenly heard his heart beating even louder than her own, and looked up at the two girls standing in the front door. "He is. Breathing. And his heart is beating."  
  
Just then, Spike came to, blinking furiously. "Bloody hell, woman! I think you broke my nose!" He touched his face carefully.  
  
"Spike, bloody hell yourself. What about the not cursing in front of teenagers?" Buffy glared at him angrily. "And, as we are at the 'what the hells' already, what the hell is going on???"  
  
Spike sighed and managed to unearth the papers from the university. He handed her over the whole bunch, explaining: "Letter of invitation to teach History at UCSD; letter of admittance and working permit for the United States; letter informing me where I will be accommodated."  
  
The girls stared at the letters and Spike without comprehending.  
  
He sighed again. "Went out with Ce… Halfrek last night. Drinking. Made a wish." He shrugged.  
  
Dawn started to giggle. Willow asked: "What did you wish for – becoming a history teacher?"  
  
"No, that part was courtesy of the Powers That Be, according to Hallie." He blushed furiously. "I just expressed the wish that sometimes, and I repeat, sometimes, I wanted to be human."  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
Sam cooed in a low, silky voice. She had a bottle with a mixture of blood and goat's milk in her hand and was nursing a furry little something that might actually have deserved the cooing, hadn't it been for the mouthful of razor-sharp teeth that could bite through bones. "Isn't it cute?", she asked Riley who was nursing a similar creature.  
  
"Mhmn", was the only answer she got. The soldier seemed deep in thoughts.  
  
"I only wish they wouldn't grow up so fast. The five not nursed by humans are already shedding their baby fur!" Sam whined a little bit, pointing over to the glass cage with her chin.  
  
"Unhugh."  
  
"Earth to Agent Finn, please report in as mentally present!"  
  
Riley snapped out of it: "Huh?"  
  
"Ah, you grace us with your presence again. Thanks ever so much!", teased Sam.  
  
"I'm sorry. I was just thinking."  
  
"Duh!"  
  
He looked at the agent who had posed as his wife. She was beautiful, womanly, caring, and also intelligent. And he felt nothing for her. She was nothing more than a subordinate. In a cool, professional voice, he adviced: "Don't grow too attached to the Savolta baby you are nursing. It will have reached adulthood by tomorrow afternoon."  
  
A flitter of disappointment danced over Sam's face, but only for the fraction of a second. In a tone that mirrored the detachment of Riley's voice, she answered: "Yessir!"  
  
They sat in silence for a while, watching the demon babies finishing their bottles. Then Sam spoke again. "What were you thinking about?"  
  
Riley hesitated. Then, with a sigh, he confessed: "Oh, you know, Spike. The vampire who watched the eggs for us in Sunnydale. He knows too much. And he is too close to Buffy. Eventually, something will slip." Riley frowned down to the demon baby in his arms. It had started gnawing on the nursing bottle's cap, and the blood-milk-mixture was spilling all over its face. Riley sighed again and reached for the towel that was hanging over his shoulder.  
  
"But Riley", Sam tried to calm him down, trying to stiffle a laugh when the blood-milk stained the other agent's trousers, "you said you made sure that Buffy thought Spike was the bad guy."  
  
"I did. But she is… her world isn't just black and white, and she has a tendency to question things."  
  
"So? This is good. Might convince her that our research is important, also for her work as a slayer. I mean, if demons can be tamed…" She stopped when Riley started to shake his head violently.  
  
"She can never know. She wouldn't understand. Too stubborn."  
  
"You just implied that she was rather open-minded…"  
  
"Yeah, in the sense that she protects the weak, be it humans or demons. She protected a werewolf, and she protects this vampire, since he has a chip in his head. She gives them the benefit of the doubt. Eventually, she might be ready to listen. And even if she doesn't believe at first, she and her whole Scooby gang might start to investigate, and then…" Riley sighed. "No. There is no other solution."  
  
Sam looked at him questioningly.  
  
"I think I just found the first assignment for our new batch of warriors."  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
Spike was sitting on the bed in the room Buffy had prepared for the 'guest professor'. He was exhausted. It had taken the whole day to convince the slayer that no foul play was done. Finally, the gang had dug up Halfrek, and the Justice Demon had confirmed his story. Spike had been sure to hear her toss her black locks back over her shoulder through the phone, still utterly content with her achievement. Reluctantly, Buffy had shown him to his room.  
  
The room was small, but well lit thanks to a French door window to the back garden. The desk stood next to it, flush with the late afternoon sunlight. A small bed stood at one wall, opposite of a closet and a small, empty shelve. Next to the bed, a door led to the adjacent bathroom. A bathroom just for him. Still, Buffy-scent emanated from it in waves. Did he still have vampire-enhanced olfactory capabilities, or was it just wishful thinking?  
  
The ex-vampire laid down on the bed and let his eyes wander through the room once again. He knew he could like it here. It felt familiar. As close to a home as he ever had, both life and un-life counting. He could start to unpack, put his clothes in the closet and his books in the shelve. But he didn't. He had seen Buffy's face, and as much as the surroundings felt like home, to be unwelcome in it would spoil everything. So he would wait. Go to the university tomorrow, he decided, check in with his dean and check out the rental offers. Shouldn't be too difficult to find another place, given that this was Sunnydale and people tended to disappear and die on a daily basis.  
  
A soft knock came from the door. Spike sat up and straightened his hair.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
Buffy entered the room as reluctantly as she had acted around him the whole day long.  
  
"Spi…" She paused. "Do you want me to call you William now?"  
  
He stared at her then shrugged. "I… I don't know. Whatever suits you, I guess."  
  
She sighed. And stared on the floor, to a spot in front of her shoes. Stylish, he realised. As always. She fidgeted with the hem of her frilly blouse. He waited. The demon inside him would have started to speak, would have said something offending, just to get a reaction. He didn't. Not that he couldn't think of something, anything. It was just that he felt it to be inappropriate. The girl had something to say, obviously. No need to prevent her from doing so by annoying her. For example with a sentence like… he drew a blank.  
  
"So – you're human now." Buffy, always great at stating the obvious.  
  
He shrugged again. "Seems so."  
  
"Is… I mean, completely? Or is the demon still inside you?" she blurted out.  
  
"That's your concern?"  
  
The slayer nodded, cheeks slightly pink.  
  
"The demon is gone. Just left me a nice couple of bloody memories, is all."  
  
She flushed a deeper pink. "Spike!"  
  
He finally looked her in the eyes. "Oh, for crissake, Buffy, I was talking about bloody memories. In the literal sense. Reminders of my do-badding. Enough to keep me ashamed and horrified and nightmarishly tortured and brooding for at least another century – if I manage to live that long and don't kill myself before because I can't stand it anymore!"  
  
Now her face was deep red. "Oh."  
  
"William, this… it doesn't change anything", she finally managed to say. 


End file.
